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The Story of the Jewish Defense League |
bcally influencing Jewish youth. There is an urgent need for
ban ongoing, regular, permanent Jewish struggle in the
bschools. There is no such thing today. There are too few
bJewish leaders who live, eat, and drink with and share the
blives of Jewish youth and students. Until we have such
bpeople, we will continue to lose the battle for our Jewish
byouth.
bAll these things haunted me when I explained my plan for
bthe Jewish Identity Center to both the JDL and a number of
bpotential donors. Carefully selected students from the
bUnited States and the Western world would attend for an
bintensive, difficult, and disciplined course in Jewish leader-
bship training. One section of the center would be for the
btraining of a limited number of religious leaders, the kinds
bwhose pulpits would be the campuses, schools, and streets
bwhere Jewish youths are to be found. They would be
bthoroughgoing Jewish scholars, trained to be superb ex-
bperts in rabbinic law and yet, at the same time, equipped
bwith the tools of contemporary Jewish life that would make
bthem the kinds of spiritual leaders we need so badly and lack
bso very much today.
bA much larger number of students attending the center
bwould be people training as lay youth leaders, again to work
bin the schools and the streets with alienated Jewish youth.
bAll people at this school would go there for one purpose:
bto become superbly trained, articulate, and dedicated
bJewish leaders who would obligate themselves for two years to
bwork totally and constantly in schools, campuses, and streets. All
bwould be given intensive training in Jewish studies,
bJudaism, Jewish history, with emphasis on the history of
bprewar Europe, the Holocaust, the Jewish resistance
bmovement in Palestine, Zionism, the Israel-Arab question,
bproblems of the American and Western Jewish community,
band studies of the Right and Left ideology in America. All
bwould be given training in speaking, debating with the op-
bposition, in organizing groups, meetings, and rallies. All
bwould undergo a program of strict discipline and intensive
bstudy, with daily examinations and rigorous standards to be
bmet. All would come out deeply committed Jews and
b